Red alerts refer to those cases where there were no ambulances available in the system to respond to emergency calls. The data was obtained by the opposition NDP through a freedom of information request and shared with CBC News. In the first six months of 2022, 2,522 red alerts were recorded, an average of 420 each month. The highest recorded month was April, when 618 incidents were recorded. 1,233 red alerts were recorded in the first half of 2021 and 2,358 were recorded in the entire year — meaning this year’s numbers have already exceeded that threshold. The average of 420 is more than double that recorded in the first half of 2021, when an average of 205 red alerts were recorded per month. The average for the first half of 2020 was 145 per month, with a total of 3,324 recorded that year. Mike Parker, president of the Alberta Health Sciences Association, said the data backed up what the union has been saying for months — that the province’s health care system is “decimated.” “A lot of times, AHS will say there’s always an ambulance available. And the data doesn’t support that conversation,” Parker said. “It backs up what we’ve been saying all along. We don’t have enough people, we don’t have enough paramedics on the streets to take care of the needs of Albertans.” HSAA president Mike Parker says two weeks ago, the province had 25 per cent of its provincial fleet out of service due to staffing, meaning almost 100 ambulances were understaffed. (HSAA website) AHS said higher-than-normal volumes of critically ill patients, the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased illness-related staff absences have contributed to “significant pressure” on the system. But others have been sounding the alarm over the ongoing red alerts for years. In late 2020, critics said the system was “running on a razor’s edge”. “We can’t continue to blame it on staff shortages because of COVID or those kinds of factors,” said Lorian Hardcastle, who teaches law and health policy at the University of Calgary. “This is a persistent problem. And the government has to do something about it sooner or later. We don’t want to get to a point where we have a lot of catastrophic incidents where people die waiting for an ambulance.” In early July, AHS announced that nine new ambulances were now on the roads of Calgary and Edmonton. The goal was to relieve some of the pressure. But Parker called that news a “non-announcement,” adding that the problem was the availability of paramedics to complete the job, not the vehicles they use to get there. In a statement, the NDP called for a commitment to the early removal of paramedics, a plan to give all paramedics a permanent full-time contract and an “urgent expansion” of the harm reduction service to address the opioid crisis. In an emailed statement Wednesday night, AHS said 10 new ambulances will be acquired in September, along with more staff. He reiterated the pandemic’s impact on EMS, saying “this is not unique to Alberta — EMS is under similar pressure in health care jurisdictions across Canada.” “The key factor in EMS red alerts remains the amount of time EMS crews must remain in hospital emergency departments waiting to safely transfer care,” it said. “AHS continues to work with hospitals, EMS and Alberta Health to collaborate on the best ways to release EMS crews into service earlier to reduce red alert cases.”
